


To Keep an Appointment with Whatever We Are

by meanderingsoul



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Bureaucracy, Crew as Family, Dancing, Dubious Science, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, New Planets, Outer Space, Paperwork, Pre-Poly, Queerplatonic Relationships, Religion, Serious Injuries, Slice of Life, Starship Enterprise (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7665763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a lot of space out in the black of their quadrant. A lot of time their little ship spent sailing between warped open edges of dimly colored light.</p><p>Sulu watched Kirk staring out of the viewscreen sometimes, with space blurred away all around them from warp speed with this look on his face like he was in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Keep an Appointment with Whatever We Are

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set directly after the 2009 movie. It is also compliant with Star Trek Beyond. It generally ignores Star Trek Into Darkness. There are no plot spoilers for the new movie in this story. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Their first time out of Spacedock 1 got way too much fanfare for what it actually was.

It wasn’t the maiden voyage of the Enterprise, it had had its first trials and then some. It wasn’t a full crew, the fleet didn’t have enough people left alive. They were short 50 crewman and would be for some time, but there was work to be done, cheerful PR needs to be satisfied.

(It was mostly blatant busy work for now, Pike hadn’t sugarcoated anything in their talks, bless him, but it was work and a ship and a crew and still everything he’d desperately never dreamed of.)

And Jim knew damn well that while he’d earned his ship, he hadn’t really _earned his ship_.

The newsnet’s liked a ‘hero’ with a pretty face, the fleet had lost 8 captains, 7 first officers, over a dozen lieutenant commanders, the academy was short 20 senior instructors, recruiting for the coming fall was well below quota, Romulan and Klingon tensions were high, and no existing captain had been willing to have him placed on their ships.

In any capacity.

And it wasn’t like Jim didn’t get that. He did. It wasn’t like Jim hadn’t already known that the only people in Starfleet who could really stand him were Bones and Pike, Gaila and Gary (one still hospitalized for the foreseeable future and one gone away into charred atoms).

They were currently escorting cargo drones to rendezvous with Space II around a class J planet in Eta VI and then they were to escort them further, meet up with Vulcan deep science vessels who were surveying their planetary options for the largest emergency colonization in the history of ever.

The high of newness and motion and getting the first officer they’d been waiting for carried everyone through the first day.

Even though Jim found he had no idea what to say to the guy now that he was actually here.

(Thank you? I still trust you completely in spite of, you know, the strangulation? You and Uhura seem great together, don’t fuck that up because I really do like to see her so happy, please? We both know we’re not really ready for this, for what’s probably coming, because you see it too don’t you? I want to pick through your brain until I get how you tick? I feel like I can pull this off, now that you’re here?)

The initial excitement of moving through space settled into to a steady workable hum by day four. People were a little bored, but nothing was stagnating - data being collected, preliminary analysis performed before being sent off to command for secondary analysis. There were forms to fill out, drills to run, Bones to go bother while Chapel took none of his shit about the surgical assist bots that Bones _did not want_ , and shit that was still so funny, and when Jim couldn’t do any of that for any longer without _losing it_ Scotty didn’t give a flying shitstorm if Jim left his yellow shirt in the office with Keenser and spent a few hours climbing around the guts of his ship with Scotty yelling for him to scan all the bolts in sector five for signs of stress or find the shorted wire somewhere under panel 37.

The other engineering staff stopped looking at him weird after two days.

On the fifth day of the trip Yeoman Barrows accidentally started a ship-wide book club when she started reading her copy of Alanna the Lioness aloud to her table during an informal late lunch and twenty other people showed up.

Jim only found out about it because Chekov was enthralled and noticeably late to beta shift, running in blushing like something that’d been irradiated to find Jim sitting at his own navigation station after his alpha shift with a smirk.

“Glad you could join us after story time Mr. Chekov.”

The ship’s new book club met every other week at the beginning of Beta for a reading.

They read a statistically unlikely amount of knights and castles and wizard books, but no one ever complained.

*

10,000 escaping the planet Vulcan (T’Khasi, _home_ ) had been illogically optimistic.

9,204 individuals had escaped the surface. Only three of the seven elders had been successfully evacuated, two ships that had been at the secondary Science Academy for study had launched with whichever students and instructors that were closest, a simple farm monitoring vessel from Na’Nam that had retrieved everyone from six nearby residences and made a desperately illogical attempt to leave the atmosphere and succeeded, three different travel vessels full of young students had done the same, ships escaped from Shi’Kar, Jaleyi, Seleya, Kwil’Inor, city transports that took as many as they could.

Those in their homes, out in their clan lands, those away at Gol, they had never had a chance.

Of the 785 distinct familial clans, lines traced thousands of years, 403 had been wiped out in entirety.

No bodies to bury. No katras to carry. No ash to add to the red sands.

(Spock hadn’t thought to preserve the sand from his face and hands until it had already vanished away through the sonics’ channel, slipped away through his fingers just like…)

The Vulcan Embassy on Terra had housed 326 at the time of The Cataclysm, individuals engaged in civic works or scientific exchanges. 35 others had been on the planet for purposes of simple tourism.

(If Terra had been lost as well…)

47 Vulcans had been off world on long range science vessels. 8 had been retrieved from the outposts along the edges of the 40 Eridani system during the Laurentian evacuations. 56 had been working at manufacturing stations orbiting Kir-Alep and had also been evacuated at that time. 18 had been on the lunar base on T’Rukhemai; they had recovered four of the nine Starfleet personal that had escaped the carnage, admirable poise in the face of unimaginable crisis. Merak had hosted 26 Vulcan engineers and technicians at the shipyards there. Harmony had a Vulcan population of 486, but that planet was unsuitable as a new home world, too cold, heavily forested, largely shared with other species. Still, many would go there for now. Many would stay at Terra.

The elders had sent out requests for a census almost as soon as the Narada was confirmed destroyed. There may yet be not insignificant numbers of Vulcans who were v’tosh ka’tur, who might return in the face of this Cataclysm. They might be more welcome now than ever before.

(Spock remembered but never thought of a sharp smile, of a familiar pair of Vulcan brown eyes, not Terran brown in a Vulcan face.)

The current known population was 10,207. It would have to be enough.

The median age was now 128, fewer elders had survived overall. 57% of the remaining population was female, which was fortunate for reasons that did not bear much contemplation and even less discussion.

There were less than a thousand children left.

Spock was fortunate. 43 members of his clan remained, however distant they had seemed from him before, now the silence they inhabited seemed limitless, unbearable save that precious handful of threads. He still had one parent remaining him, a greyed cord his mind frantically clung to. (Mother was still a raw severance.) His clan was not currently childless. His clan still retained their elders and was not voiceless. Spock was fortunate.

(He never let himself consider how many of them he would heartlessly trade away if it would return his mother to living.)

*

With Spock joining them last minute and Jim having refused to deal with the idea of another first officer entirely, now there were forms to sign to make his placement official, forms about what they’d done today, forms about what they planned on doing, and then more forms.

All to be sent in the daily encoded subspace databurst that had to be coordinated between communications and navigation departments, with regards to their current travel speed and which side of earth was facing them, which told them which array to use.

Which needed to take place in two hours apparently.

Pike _had_ told him. _“There’s a reason captaincy goes to older officers Kirk, once the hyperactivity of being a shiny new officer wears off. Not just for all the experience. You’re going to do a lot of important tasks on the day to day that bore you to tears.”_

_“You know I’ll do things my own way sir.”_

_“Do I ever.”_

“So, crew evaluations to be done by you every 60 days, eh, we’ll just pick a night and do that with Bones there, I type fast, and I think leaving you and Bones alone in a small room for any length of time is asking for trouble. Um. Technically, as first, you’re supposed to settle interpersonal disputes on the ship.”

“Yes.”

“I doubt you have _any_ interest in doing that.”

Spock stared blankly for a moment before saying, “Affirmative.”

“No problem. I’m more than happy to deal with disputes from Opps and gold services myself. I don’t see any problem with us splitting tasks as we see fit.”

Spock blinked twice. He’d been more straight faced so far than during the entire time dealing with the Narada. This was probably more normal for him. Jim would have to get used to it.

“It is not explicitly against regulations for us to arrange a non-traditional division of tasks. However, I believe Admiral Pike intended for me to perform all the traditional duties of a first officer.”

“Yeah I’m sure he did. I’m also pretty sure he didn’t plan on being our youngest admiral, or getting tortured, or getting the medal of valor, or being currently stuck in a glorified wheelchair with Nu…”  Jim cut himself off. “But I do want you to deal with issues in the sciences yourself. You’re going to need to work on those skills for your own command someday.”

“Very well, though I have no interest in commanding a ship.”

“What, not ever?” Jim wasn’t really thinking of much now beyond getting his crew out on one of the five year missions, scouring through the barely known black near the neutral zone, but Vulcans lived a long time, tended to have multiple careers.

Jim knew Spock had graduated the academy in three years with flying colors (and had somehow had to take one of those awkward seminars for species who weren’t quite fitting in with federation standard behavior, taking it with Gaila who wouldn’t share). He’d made lieutenant after one year on a science vessel, the Newton, frigate class, destroyed now. He’d taken over teaching advanced Vulcan language and some astrophysics, helped design the Kobayashi Maru, had ended up Pike’s first choice for a first officer on the ship that Jim had been hoping to start out as a programming department ensign.

Now they were here, hashing out who wanted to do what in Jim’s new ready room after their first real shift, at warp 3 away from Sol space. Wouldn’t Spock want his own ship someday?

“My promotion to lieutenant commander only took place 47 days prior to the incident with the Kobayashi Maru exam, and subsequent events. Now I am already a full commander and head of one of the largest science departments in the fleet.”

Huh. “So, ambitions fulfilled then?”

“On the contrary, I am relieved that perhaps I may finally turn the majority of my time to the study of stellar and planetary phenomena. Which is part of the reason I chose Starfleet in the first place.”

Jim let himself laugh. The way Spock’s tone had gotten just a little bit bitchy on that last sentence was adorable. Spock twitched an eyebrow. That was more like it. “You’ll have to tell me your other reasons sometime. Not a lot of Vulcans pick Starfleet, not the way Andorians and Tellarites do.”

Spock allowed the corners of his mouth to twitch up. He found he could picture Captain Kirk’s reaction to those particular events. “Perhaps.”

*

Over thirty crewman dead and the ship was overcrowded.

They’d only managed to take on twenty Vulcan refugees before leaving the system, the larger Vulcan ships already moving into orbit around the systems distant dwarf suns to wait for escort and rescue vessels.

(Nyota still hadn’t heard anything about Gaila, one way or another. There hadn’t been much time for anyone to make it out, but she had to keep some hope. Had to.)

The Laurentian fleet might be there by now, given the Enterprise was listing its way back towards Earth at impulse speed from halfway to Proxima Centauri, and communications was intermittent at best. Nyota spent all her time running between the bridge and H deck to double check things through the less damaged subspace receivers there. There was so much chatter on fleet channels picking out anything related to them specifically was an absolute nightmare.

She knew Spock had given over his quarters for his father’s use, and that of the other Vulcan Elders. Kirk had offered Captain Pike’s quarters as well, when it became clear that the Ambassador’s quarters on E deck still wouldn’t be enough space. She’d heard from a yeoman that Kirk had gone in and cleaned up Pike’s rooms himself, before letting anyone in.

(She’d had to face the fact that Kirk _was_ highly intelligent by the end of his first semester, they shared too many classes for her to miss it, despite the party boy image he continued to nurture. She’d always figured he’d end up a talented officer in whatever department he finally chose and a shitty leader. But the way he’d put it all on the line to save the ship, to save Sulu, to save the Earth had earned her respect. Completely.

She was never going to tell him that though; it would go straight to his head, coming from her, she just knew it.)

Nyota had no idea where Kirk was sleeping; none of the cadets had ever been assigned quarters. There hadn’t been time. The grav plating was out in a third of F deck, and low priority for repairs, which left people sharing beds based on wherever one was empty. Nyota had been switching off with two other girls in the comm department for two days, but sharing sheets with two relative strangers didn’t matter much after another sixteen hour shift.

She hadn’t expected to open the door to that room and see Spock sitting on the floor in the dark, arms wrapped around bent knees, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Spock?” she said softly. She didn’t ask if he was ok.

It was a moment before he said, “My apologies Nyota. I had not… intended to come here. For my father and I to be in the same room at this time is…oppressive.”

He didn’t move or look at her. She let the door close before someone saw, tapped a light on low and sat down next to him, but not close enough to touch. “I can imagine that.” Vulcan’s had never had a culture of open communal grieving, not the way they did for so many other behaviors if you paid attention to the subtleties. They didn’t seem like people who would benefit from it either.

There was nothing she could say, no word in any language she knew, that could encompass watching your mother die in front of your eyes and your entire planet follow, for his grief or the grief she felt for him. But she could sit with him and maybe somehow it would help.

“If you… If you hadn’t demanded I change your assignment to the Enterprise, if I’d allowed myself to fixate on acting so circumspectly, insisted you take the Farragut instead…”

“Spock no…”

“I could have gotten you killed too. Nyota I would have gotten you killed over _shame_ , I couldn’t _bear it_.”

Nyota had no idea if this was the right call or not, but she nudged his arms out to the sides and climbed into his lap, skirt catching and riding up awkwardly, but no one was in a position to notice or care. She got an arm around his neck, scritched her fingers through his hair, that strange stiff and flexible texture distinct to Vulcans, leaned her head down against his shoulder. He still wouldn’t look at her. But after a moment his arms lifted, curled around her back and then clutched her close, almost too tight to breathe.

He didn’t sob or shake, but the top of her uniform dress got damp and his breathing was far, far too deliberate in a way that hurt to hear. She didn’t put any effort into keeping her eyes dry, hummed and tried to sway them a bit, curling into the heat of his chest.

They sat there a long time.

*

Everyone in the know knew there was a trick to packing for these long term, deep space missions.

Everyone got a collapsible crate, every rank had its own size and weight limit, not that they were all that different, sometimes a mere matter of millimeters. The trick was to keep your everyday uniform sets, the soft boots and bright tops, shirt, tunic, or dress, black leggings or pants or sturdy hosiery, the grey dress uniform with its stiff hat (and the super-extra-formal bright, heavy, and uncomfortable silk uniform you had if you were a senior officer expected to do diplomacy, that absolutely _nobody_ envied), as neatly folded on top as you possibly could. Inspectors generally didn’t dig if things looked pretty good. Starfleet wasn’t the MACO’s. Then, if you had some ties and decent spatial reasoning skills you could wrap candy bars into rolls of pajamas and hide sex toys away inside underwear (because it was usually a long, chilly trip). Handheld games and specialized reading padds full of books could be padded in with black denim or corduroy, other items fitted in between socks and additional clothes.

Off duty on a starship wasn’t ever really _off duty_. You didn’t have to be in uniform when you weren’t working, but any civilian stuff you were wearing around the ship had to be black, grey, or your division color. Something to do with needing to be able to recognize who might be useful and for what in an emergency situation, which only really sucked if you had to wear yellow. But it really made it a complete waste to bring along lots of stuff you could only wear on shore leave.

People packed holos and glossy prints for their walls, a favorite blanket, the occasional plush animal, decks of different playing cards, tiny music players that could work with the Enterprise’s small-device inductive charging system, powdered flavor packets to take the blah out of replicated milk and juice, bouncy balls, handheld holo games (personal VR devices were banned aboard ship for good reason).

The most important thing to pack was _candy_.

Even though everyone had a standard portion of sweets they could get from the replicators each week (the orange ration cards got handed out on F deck, Quartermaster’s offices, every week along with the blue, green, yellow, and red for other meal types) everyone, absolutely everyone, brought their own, as much as possible. Nothing took the drag out of another Gamma shift like a bag of gummy worms. There was by far more illicit trade in orange cards and non-replicated chocolate on a ship than there was in alcohol.

(It wasn’t like it was hard for people to make that on their own out in the black, not on the big ships full of bored engineers and conniving programmers.)

In exchange for this help and knowledge Pavel brought Sulu an entire bottle of premium Russian vodka aboard in his own luggage crate, maxing out his weight limit, as well as two crunchie bars he thought he might like.

But Pavel suspected based on the look of Sulu’s rooms and the way he’d been shown ‘Gertrude’ like a beloved pet, that the seeds for Russian red devil orchids, tucked away inside a sock would be much more appreciated.

*

Spock had come to visit Pike in the hospital.

Well of course Spock had come by. So had Jim, and other officers he knew, and McCoy had a particular kind of hover that didn’t grate on him as bad as the other doctors.

He’d been in and out of consciousness on the ship after McCoy dug that _thing_ out of his back.

He’d woken the first time to Spock holding one of Pike’s limp hands up against the Vulcan’s shadowed face, and wasn’t that a familial gesture? But shit, he had no idea if Spock had any family left at all, estranged or otherwise. He’d tried to twitch a finger, say something, but he was out cold again in seconds. Next time had been McCoy, looking dead on his feet and more like 49 than 29, briskly explaining the surgery, his injuries, and the general crew status while testing his nerve function.

None of it was particularly good news.

Next was Jim, all in black, livid bruising across his face and around his neck, machine oil under his nails. He had that manic edge around his eyes that Pike recognized from a few finals weeks, from after that advanced survival seminar he’d cleared him for. But Jim sat still and straight, hoarsely summarized the events after his capture, which for some reason included a staged mutiny and blowing up their brand new warpcore. And an apology.

Pike blearily watched Jim stare at the floor. “Son, I’ll let you know when I’m more awake if I want you to be sorry or not. For now, you keep doing what you’re doing. Obviously she’s still flying. Tell Spock to come wake me when he has the time. I’d like to talk to him too.”

“Of course sir.” But he hesitated, shifting from foot to foot before reaching out and setting one grimy palm on Pike’s chest, right over his heart, before vanishing out the door.

Pike would have reached for the spot if he could move his arms. Three years of class schedules, two bar fights, four incident reports, and two hospitalization visits and Jim had never reached for him.

Then they were back to earth, his time spent mostly with quiet strangers from Starfleet medical in quiet halls, evaluations and tests and sleep. Una was still out with the Laurentian fleet, and he waited to make that first direct comm till he knew he could keep his eyes open as long as necessary.

It wasn’t a long call. He’d never seen her cry before, not in all those years. Pike was always the one who did stuff like tear up at movies. But Una took one solemn look at him and her eyes welled up, face twisting into a scowl, said, “Christopher Pike, you stupid bastard. I’ll be there in four days,” and cut the connection.

(Nero had called him Christopher. Said it so, so softly. Nobody called him Christopher. Even Una had only ever called him Pike. Pike had no intention of ever using his given name again.)

What Pike really meant about Spock was he woke up one grey afternoon, still groggy from the last spinal surgery and there was an unknown but familiar looking older Vulcan sitting next to his bed.

“Is there something I can do for you sir?” he said, because he wasn’t in uniform and old habits died hard.

“No Captain. I merely wished to see you were well.”

Pike was still pretty hazy. “Well might be debatable,” he blurted out. “Do I, um, do I know you from somewhere?”

“I would have to admit you know my younger self better.”

Pike swallowed a couple times, blinked hard, couldn’t sit up and stare because of the immobilizers. “You know, I didn’t think Jim was making anything up, but it’s different seeing it.”

“Yes. I doubt Jim has explained the whole sequence of events to you.”

Accidental time travel. A splintered off, parallel timeline. A galaxy without a Romulus. A galaxy with the Kelvin. A galaxy without Vulcan. Tragedy either way.

“I think I’ve got the gist at this point.”

“Allow me Captain, to tell you just a little bit more.”

But he spoke instead of seven years of deep space aboard the Enterprise, of a Jim he’d never known, of a young Vulcan officer he’d mentored. He spoke of a smaller ship, a training accident, of dead cadets under his charge, of Una left behind shattered on an alien world alone for years, of his body so irradiated that the regen wouldn’t take, the nerve pain unmanageable by any technique known.

Of four years spent alone, in agony, only able to blink.

Of mutiny. Of living a lie far from home the only relief.

They had met Spock, their universe’s Spock before, before the Narada, before the fleet brass found out he and Una had lied in the logs about their relationship for six years.

(They’d almost been close enough in rank to satisfy regulation, had been for most of it in fact, but admirals didn’t like anyone’s secrets but their own. Pike had been _conveniently_ ordered dirt side to take over as commandant of cadets, Una oh so nicely promoted to a different ship. But a commission wasn’t forever.)

Spock had been 24, very young for a Vulcan, a senior cadet on a summer ship posting. Una had taken one look at his high-strung, forced stoicism and badly stifled scientific enthusiasm, and decided, very stoically herself of course, that this was obviously the long lost baby she’d never had or wanted.

Pike had given her no end of shit for it, but he’d taken an interest too, tried to help Spock integrate better with his various crewmates, taught him chess, made sure he gave the navigation station and engineering a try between his time at the helm or in astrodynamics with Una.

They were quite pleased with themselves at the end of it when Spock was so obviously more settled with himself, speaking cordially to crewmates when approached, that calm demeanor less forced, but Pike would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the little half-grin of excitement Spock had used to let slip out.

Pike blinked at this strange older Spock. “We, we were all out there for years.”

This Spock smiled too, but it was small, even, no hint of teeth. Not quite the same. “I know you will grieve for time lost, but I would suspect you already know me far better in this timeline than I ever allowed you to where I come from. And perhaps the same for some other individuals as well. Rest well sir, and prosper.”

Pike didn’t rest well.

He wasn’t expecting to after all that. The imagined images of that other universe, his other future, that nightmare, woke him up in a cold sweat more thoroughly than the pain of nerves coming back to life in his hips and the numb of his feet.

(Wasn’t it selfish of him though? Wasn’t it terrible? To prefer this, when billions more people had lived in that other place and time? Where he only had thirty dead cadets to his name rather than almost 300?)

But Spock’s story accomplished what Pike figured it had been meant to accomplish. A different perspective.

He’d lost so many of his students. He’d failed his ship, his planet. Not through cowardice, but he’d failed all the same. His best and brightest had had to face challenges he wouldn’t wish on anyone, and face them alone. 38 members of the crew he’d selected were already dead.

He’d just lost everything he’d been dreaming of for himself the last four years.

But, as he glanced at his motionless feet and sighed against the immobilizers, when it got to be too much, when that apathetic, sour rage tried to squirm back up his throat, that other life would be waiting in the back of his mind to make him close his teeth and get back up.

*

Constitution class ships worked mainly in three shifts, just like the rest of the fleet, Alpha first thing in the day, then Beta starting after dinner, then Gamma that lined up with pacific Terran night. Taking the same shift every day of the week would lead to complete insanity pretty damn quickly. Nobody did that. It wasn’t the same people in a shift every time either. There were prime, secondary, and tertiary groups for every bridge shift, a complicated, tangled web of experience levels and skillsets. Lieutenant Darwin was Beta Prime navigator, she took over for Chekov, Alpha Prime, if he was displaced, but if _she_ was displaced it was the Alpha Second that was supposed to take over, not Gamma Prime Ensign Arex. And so on and so forth.

Honestly, being part of the bridge crews just meant you were on call twice as thoroughly as everyone else and had to do most of your paperwork and research while running back and forth between it and the bridge.

But really, it wasn’t like they just sat on the bridge a full eight hours every damn day watching stars go by; regulations stated the bridge crews should be there around 70% of the duty shift, with time allowed to check in with departments, talk with crew members about issues, go pee, etc.

If you were a science department type person you went to your lab, did your eight hours during your shift, did your 8 – 16 additional logged research hours a week, and if you did much more you got taken to have a nice chat with Bones about stuff like eating and sleeping. Same with the engineering laddies. Scotty and Spock led by their own crazy work ethics. Medical kept the same nutcase hours as most everyone else. Some of the more junior technicians actually did their eight hour shift and then were _done_ for the day, which was hard for Jim to imagine, having never had the chance to do anything like that.

And of course every crewmember got a completely empty day every two weeks of a deployment, barring emergencies. It was enough to keep everybody sane. Spock complained how he didn’t need his Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

Jim had Alpha with the usual everyone on Moonday and again on Thursday. Tuesday he took Beta with Uhura and Sulu, Wednesday was Beta with Spock and Chekov. Friday he was with the Alpha secondary crew. Saturday was with Beta secondary and Sunday he and Spock were with either Alpha tertiary or Beta tertiary depending on the week. He only really saw Gamma if he stopped by to visit.

Of course if they were in an intense area of space all that shit went out the airlock and tertiaries didn’t get hardly any bridge time at all. But this hadn’t happened yet.

Spock took another Gamma on his own, in addition to his regular shifts every fourth shift or so, citing a lesser need for sleep and the complete irrelevance of Earth’s seven day week to Vulcan culture, from where the federation practice of simply counting upwards to whatever and starting over had originated.

And no matter what Bones showed up on the bridge while Jim was in the middle of his shift every day to stare out at the black and grumble, steady as a metronome.

*

Most of the medical facilities on the Enterprise were on central G deck, supposedly for safety (ha, right, G deck was as surrounded by God forsaken space as everywhere else) and the necessity of traversing through a starship from multiple directions made G seem pretty central. G also had the evacuation transporter rigs and the only parts of the ship that could function on a separate life support system.

Leo was already damn familiar with every square inch of Medical on this ship, but before it had been through desperation, as the most junior surgeon on the ship was suddenly the most senior one, and the only surgeon left.

Now he really was the CMO. All of this was technically his, and that was pretty God damned cool.

(He was never admitting that to Jimmy though, not even after he made the kid help him haul in that fancy, leather desk chair, just like the one he’d used to have, into Leo’s new office in the dead of night and get it bolted into floor tracks correctly.)

Medical on a Constitution class ship had two low intensity wards, seven beds each with the ability to set up four more in an emergency, though the floors started getting crowded, a separate ICU with four beds, two with the latest stabilization fields for catastrophic limb injuries with their own separate power source. The entire surgical suite had the same advanced biobed set up and every scanner you could ever want, as well as four surgical assist walking toasters that he did not want _at all_.

Nurse Chapel had taken a moment during that 36 hour hell of a rescue mission to laugh at him for it, borderline hysterics, her blonde hair shoved behind her ears fallen out of its up-do, eyeliner smudged, smear of someone’s blood across her neck, before she’d straightened up and bossed the robots around for him, all while continuing preliminary debridement on the Ensign’s lower legs and monitoring the anesthesia readouts. Leo’d been removing shrapnel from the lower right lung and liver, vision going hazy around the edges, coming up on 26 hours sleepless and running hard.

Chapel was an absolute godsend. If she hadn’t signed on as his chief nurse Leo had no idea what he would have done.

The repaired pathology lab was spacious, separate spaces for examination and autopsy and enough cold storage for both. The infectiology equipment was all so state of the art beautiful it almost brought a tear to his eye. There was ambient temperature storage for wound dressings, surgical tools, vaccines and vaccine bases, medical tricorders, hypospray syringe casings, and handheld regenerators for away missions. Bio storage had containers of medical grade maggots in their stasis jars, the cold cases of blood bags and plasma samples, 23 blood types from 8 different species (and of course Jimmy was Rh-null and allergic to the synthetics), biodegradable scaffolds for stem cell organ growth, granulated bone for four different species, collagen films for burn treatment, and enough pain relievers, anti-inflammatories, stimulants, and supplements to last them about a year without a resupply ship.

There was an office for the on duty nurse, and Leo’s private cubicle with its admittedly out of place comfy chair. Doctor’s M’Benga (secondary surgeon and one of Earth’s primary Vulcan specialists), Harris (not as much real surgical experience as Leo would like, nutrition and endocrinologist), and Kos (dental and some ENT) shared a larger office space. Dr. Noel’s office was also private, and by far the largest for good reason, since that’s where she’d see her patients as the ships sole headshrink. He had nine other nurses on staff now, six human gals, two human fellas, and a young Denobulan male. Most had been with him on the ship at Vulcan and he was damn glad to have them back after the way they’d held together through that mess.

Medicine might be more diagnostics and infectiology now than it had generally been throughout human history, way back when, when medicine meant failing to treat early stage cancers and shrugging at basic autoimmune problems and having no idea how the damn endocrine system worked, but Leo had always been a trauma surgeon before virologist.

People got the wrong idea about surgeons, about professional level wound treatment - maybe somewhat from those low level, home use, DIY skin regenerators that any idiot could wave around willy-nilly and not do damage, some from the way it often looked like doctors did the same damn thing.

There was a reason steady hands were still necessary.

Run a real dermal regenerator too quickly and the skin will be thin, the wound likely to tear and reopen, run it too jerkily and you’ll get thin spots and thick, warping the edges of the wound and causing scars, run one too slow and the skin turns hypertrophic. All are mistakes requiring follow up procedures to repair, all waste the patients time. Every species had a different necessary pace for treatment and you better know them all on a starship.

And the complexities increase exponentially with the intricacy of the procedure. By the time you got to something like surgical bone infusion (open the skin, the muscle, remove the displaced shards, watch out for all the major blood vessels bound to be between you and them, prep the osteoblast stimulator, apply granulated bone of the _exact_ weight to replace the fragmentation within the confines of the stabilizer field, and what, you thought you could just shake some in like sprinkles on a sundae?) there were dozens of errors that could affect healing rate or require follow up repair, and if someone got a surgical infection in this day and age, with all the sanitation equipment available, you could kiss your license to practice goodbye.

Sure, they weren’t just stitching people up like a ripped shirt and hoping for the best anymore, but that didn’t make it all _easy_.

And he was damn good at it.

Leo hadn’t expected to be the most accomplished surgeon on the ship anytime soon, definitely hadn’t ever considered he’d be one of the most senior medical officers in the fleet before forty. Starfleet had been decent about him signing up last minute, taken his previous experience into account and shortened his course schedule accordingly, got him set up with some real work in the campus hospital after only one semester of mind-numbing clinic duties, assured him with his experience level he’d graduate as a lieutenant, though he hadn’t given a shit about that at the time.

The plan had been to join up, get himself into a decent post planet-side, or maybe on a starbase (those didn’t move too much), spend as little time in or near space as possible, and find out if he could ever get a real research grant again without someone digging into the circumstances of just how and why he’d gotten fired from the hospital in Georgia and lost everything.

(His research. His job. His daddy. His granddad. His mother. His home. His wife. The baby girl they’d been talking about trying for. All gone in a matter of weeks.)

This, the fleet, had been the new plan, not the original one. And Leo simply didn’t think he had it in him to try for all that again. How could he, after how ugly it had all ended. He hasn’t even been able to make himself touch…

But he had Jim.

Jim, blood all down his shirt, who had talked for hours so some vagrant looking bastard who gave him a drink wouldn’t hyperventilate himself unconscious in public. Jim with that shocked, hesitantly joyful look whenever Leo spent time with him of his own volition. Jim who called him Bones until he stopped minding the stupid nickname at all. Jim who picked fights with half his instructors, as well as half his classmates, because he could never bring himself to shut his fool mouth. Jim who’d flopped into Leo’s bed whenever he’d had a nightmare, whenever they were drunk, during finals when they were so damn tired, who was always so, so sweet when Leo couldn’t sleep. Jim who’d had the goddamned gall to hack the Kobayashi Maru and then refuse to say sorry.

Jim who’d promised over and over in the dark, when he was drunk enough or tired enough, we’ll get on the same ship, and I’ll get my own ship fast you know I will, and you’ll be my CMO, and we’ll be together, you don’t have to worry about anything Bones, I promise.

And here they were. Together, just like he’d promised, with some of the best and craziest people Leo had ever met.

That was worth a hell of a lot.

But Leo was going to worry every damn minute of every God forsaken day until they were all dead out in the hellhole of space.

*

Jim had had the luxury of finding the entire concept of needing a personal yeoman ridiculous for about three days.

After three days he misfiled a report that should have gone to both Pike _and Durand_ and had to submit a formal apologetic follow-up that made him look just like the idiotic, unqualified, sorry excuse for an officer every admiral but maybe Pike thought he was. He’d lost a padd that had Spock’s latest departmental update and had to ask for another copy, which was just the height of professionalism, way to convince Spock he was good for something besides unimaginable crises, and only realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast with Bones that morning before Alpha when Yeoman Rand let herself into his quarters with what must be her personal override and dropped a tray with plain sliced veggies and a chicken sandwich in front of him with a clatter and a glare.

Jim stared between it and her for a moment. “I guess I skipped lunch, didn’t I?”

“And dinner. I’ll be going now sir.”

She nodded smartly, turned on one heel to go, and Jim was starting to think that his refusal to delegate everything and be some lazy slob of a captain was pissing her off on a personal level.

“Would you join me, Yeoman?”

She stopped, stared at him over her shoulder.

Jim pushed out his spare chair with the toe of his boot, put on his very best I am calm and captain-y, no one in the admiralty thinks I might be a sociopath, smile. “There’s a few matters I’d like to discuss with you. If you have a minute.”

“Oh. Of course sir.”

She sat. He nudged his tray closer to her. After a minute she took one of his pieces of celery. Her fingers were tiny, and shit wasn’t she not even twenty yet? Her and Chekov were the youngest on the ship. Jim ate a third of his sandwich quickly, he was hungry after all, huh, and pretended the silence wasn’t awkward as fuck.

“Yeoman Rand, contrary to the public image I have so carefully cultivated, I won’t need help with this most of this stuff in another week. I’m on the worst learning curve any fleet captain has had since _Archer_ but that won’t last, and when it wears off I’m going to need something to do around here besides sit in the command chair and sound encouraging or I’ll probably mutiny against myself and steal the ship for piracy.”

Rand was squinting at him, pale mouth in a moue that said she wasn’t impressed by any of that.

He handed her another piece of celery. After a moment she crunched into it, still staring suspiciously.

“My point is, I can’t delegate too much of the day to day stuff Rand or I’ll get stircrazy. More stricrazy. Now, I’m sure when we’re having rough missions you’ll be here to pick up the slack on the day to day paperwork and I’ll be very grateful for it. But I’m not going to be ok with that being our status quo. I need stuff to do, and you are far too qualified to do stuff like pick up my room for me.”

“Though that _is_ part of why I’m here.” She looked pissed again.

This wasn’t working.

Jim sighed. “Rand, what made you sign on with Starfleet? And what made you want to ship out with us instead of taking a position earthside or on a big, fancy space station? I know your training performance was great.”

Jim also knew she’d applied to the main academy and been rejected, math and sciences performance scores too low, but he didn’t want to bring that up.

Rand watched his face for a minute before she said, “My hometown is less than 500 people. Everyone raises cows and sheep, or you’re a mechanic.  Not a lot of people leave.”

“But you needed to get out, be somewhere new,” he said softly, and it wasn’t really a question.

She hesitated before she nodded.

Jim let himself smile. “Hey I get it. I’m from Riverside, Iowa. You know there’s nothing there but corn and the shipyards that no one actually _from_ there works at. I was fixing harvester machines before I got out of the seventh grade in exchange for fresh corn. The only thing I’ve got back there is trouble.”

She snorted a little, like she knew somehow that that was an understatement.

“Do you have family back home Rand? Anyone waiting on exciting letters from out in the black?”

She smiled, but it wasn’t happy. “Mostly trouble.”

“I understand,” he said, and Jim really did.

“So let’s do this. I know you were assigned as my personal yeoman. You know I don’t need as much yeoman-ly things as other officers might be comfortable with. I don’t want you to be bored here. It’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry you’ve had a boring start on the ship so far. So. I don’t know how to make this more official just now, I will find out, but I picked my people from the tops of their fields not only because they are brilliant but because they have an attitude towards being out here that I can understand. Unfortunately that means they all do things like forget to sleep and eat and that their shifts actually end on a schedule.

Rand, I’d like you to personally keep an eye on the Alpha prime crew, and any of the other department heads you think could use it, including Doctor McCoy. Keep everyone from running themselves into the ground, step in where they could use some help. I know you can manage that many high strung people, including our Mr. Spock. You’re perfectly qualified.”

She frowned, but it wasn’t angry, just contemplative. “I _was_ assigned to you though, Captain.”

“Rand, I already have one personal Bones. I really don’t need two.”

“And your “Bones” has Chapel to keep him in line,” she pointed out.

“Yes he does. I’m sure you can check in with her personally to find out if he’s doing stuff like terrorizing patients he’s deemed idiotic because he needs more sleep. I can only visit him so often.”

Jim finished his sandwich, eyed the carrots sadly. Rand finished her piece of celery and fidgeted with the edge of her red sleeve.

“Do you think this will work for you? We can work out something else if need be.”

But she smiled. “I think I can work with this Captain.”

“That’s great Yeoman, thank you. I’ll get things cleared with Mr. Spock by the end of tomorrow.

Ah, one more thing before you go. I’m allergic to celery.”

He saw her eyes widen, glance over the remaining celery and the untouchable carrots against them, realize she was the only one who’d eaten any of it. “I am so sorry sir, I..”

“It’s fine! Really. I’m sure Doctor McCoy can get you the relevant allergy lists. I think he wants to do a paper on mine eventually.”

“…I see.”

*

They dropped out of warp in sector 348X-Z108Omega-Y3.

There wasn’t that much in this particular corner of the place. It was out near the upper galactic edge, where the light got thin and the stars were small or old, reds and whites and dark drifts of dust. Looking out across the edge didn’t look that different, though, the tinted dots of stars replaced by the tinted dots of galaxies, glorious and unreachable.

Jim caught himself before he stared out the viewport and sighed a second time.

“Sulu, keep us on half impulse, our current course for now. Mr. Spock, anything interesting on the scanners?” They were just supposed to drop warp and run a long range sensor sweep before heading back on their way. Routine data collection. There shouldn’t be any problems this far out, and well away from Klingon and Romulan space.

“Yes Captain.”

Well shit.

Spock stood up and faced the rest of the bridge, hands clasped tightly behind his back. “The nearby proto star, also referred to as a sub brown dwarf, has entered its phase of collapse sometime in the interval since it was originally surveyed 2.6 years ago. If we remain in this system for up to three hours we should be able to establish both the rate of stellar compression and the speed at which the mass will cool.”

“Three hours. That’ll put us behind schedule for our rendezvous with the Koubai Maru (Tritium class, and _boring_ ) if we keep to warp four like we’re supposed to.”

Spock was visibly restraining himself from gesturing about just how Very Important and Awesome this data was. It was fucking adorable. “This is very valuable data. There are no other ships in the area that can record this process if we leave the area immediately.”

Jim waited a beat or two, just to watch Spock’s eyes start to get wide and fixed as he got ready to argue, then grinned. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it Mr. Spock.”

“Take us into a .5 au exterior radius orbit around that object please Sulu, there shouldn’t be any risk of us getting toasty in here.”

For a star it barely threw off any light at all, the dim glow of an old filament bulb burning out, orangey and dim, blotchy. Usually this close to stars they needed shields up and their heaviest photon filter active across the view port or they’d all go blind. But he knew a brown dwarf wasn’t quite a star, was a leap where you slid slowly over the edge afterwards instead of ever really catching hold.

Spock was already glued to his viewer again, Uhura shaking her head with a smile and Ensign Pyrb from astrometrics peering over his shoulder with his head frill twitching excitedly.

Jim keyed his direct comm to Engineering while Sulu and Chekov put in the final course corrections, impulse engines humming in ripples as the ship turned, and went back to arguing over the book padd Chekov was reading. “Scotty! I want to try out warp six for about an hour next shift. Is our girl up to it?”

He heard a clatter and a huff, the squeaky chitter from when something had bumped Keenser and pissed him off. “Whadya take me for captain?”

“Sounds good Scotty. I’ll keep you posted.”

He clicked the comm over to medical. “Bones come on up here when you’ve got a minute, take a look at the view.”

Two of Spock’s space-science buddies all but scrambled onto the bridge and to the main science station, updated certain scanner settings and ran back out to the labs down on H.

Sulu was going over Chekov’s book with a stylus like he was checking the kid’s homework or something. Jim didn’t ask. With photon filter level two down, as was standard when within range of any star, he could watch it as long as he wanted.

He heard the door open behind him, heard the soft tread of Bones’ boots. “Beautiful, isn’t it Bones?”

Bones stared outwards, head tipped a little to the left, mouth open a little, soft, rapt. Jim hadn’t really needed to ask.

“Hmph. Like a Galgalim floating through space, a thousand fiery eyes ever watching the black around it,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

Jim grinned up at him. “I’m not sure if that’s morbid or inspired Bones.”

Bones snorted, petted a hand heavy along Jim’s shoulder on his way to the turbolift door. “Like you’d be the one to judge.”

Uhura ducked in with him as the door slid closed. “I didn’t realize you were…”

McCoy glanced at her sideways, a slight grin on his face, wry. “Religious? Recognized the word Galgalim did you? Though most people would probably say Thrones. Well, I think my entire hometown was Reawakened Baptist and if you were something else you had better keep your trap shut about it. I know enough, enough to know which parts to bother caring about at least.”

They were at G deck, but he hit the button to keep the door closed, waited for her to say it. Because he already knew there was an it somehow.

“There were a lot of people in Baha’i in my family, and many just, not. There were always a lot of religions in Nairobi. I was never sure what I really thought.” There’d been plenty of secular people around as well of course, 60% of Earth was these days, but she’d never been sure about that either. 

“Way I see it, there’s a whole lot of nothing out here with us to not believe in a bit of something isn’t there?”

Uhura thought about the mantra Spock said over his little firepot every time he lit it, words of praise for the fire’s heat, strength, and volatility that could be traced back to a prayer for the fire god of Vulcan 5,000 years before, thought about the kind of mind that after years of rigorous scientific study went out into deep space, looked at a dying almost-star, and called it an angel.

“I guess that makes sense.”

*

Coming all the way back to earth the first normal time was… weird.

The _very_ first time the ship had been limping into spacedock, it’d been missing chunks of hull, most of their warpcore, and dozens of crew. There’d been press everywhere, Vulcan refugees to escort safely down to the surface. Bones had been busy transferring his patients to less blown to hell facilities. Pike was unconscious. Scotty flat refused to leave engineering. As they left the ship Jim and Uhura flanked Spock with Sulu and Chekov just behind him, because if some press vulture made a grab at him for a _thrilling_ comment someone was going to die, and Jim wasn’t sure which of them would’ve committed the murder.

It was all hellish. Spock seemed to vanish away into the atmosphere, and Jim was not acknowledging the frantic worry that he’d never see him again. Pike was trapped in the ICU. Every single Starfleet official apparently had questions only Jim could answer and he’d better do it right the fuck now.

Jim didn’t end up sleeping for another 36 hours, finally crashed in their goddamned stuffy dorm room, just as they’d left the place, down to Jim’s dirty socks, except the building was fucking deserted because of goddamned future Romulan bastards, and had thought seriously about crying himself to sleep.

He’d woken up maybe 5 hours later with Bones clinging to his legs, face smushed into his back and still reeking of hospital. Jim’d been able to sleepily squirm himself around, press kisses to smooth brown hair, a prickly cheek, the corner of a softly frowning mouth, shove his face down against his neck where that salt, antiseptic, and barley smell was strongest. Bones woke up just enough to pull him close like a teddy bear, rub the heel of a hand along his back until exhaustion took over again.

Then the official debriefings started.

Then the funerals.

This time the return was so noneventful Jim wasn’t really sure what to do with it. They hadn’t been gone even three full weeks, but it still seemed like there should be more… something.

There was nothing but the same city it seemed like there’d always been.

In San Francisco was the main Starfleet academy campus with its offices and classrooms, the sprawling medical and research complexes adjacent off to the east, where Bones had hopped on a tram to get to twice a week for three years from their dorm. All the student dorms were on the north side, around a quad that was lovely in the fall and had just the right amount of trees to let you get away with public sex (if you were into that, Gaila so adored sunshine). Jim and Bones had shared senior level rooms (bless Bones’ grouchy, multi-degreed, bleeding, drunken little heart) on the upper floor of Tucker Dormitory the entire time they were cadets, Jim saved from the hellhole of sharing with bright eyed, young freshman by Bones’ noisy refusal to deal with any other roommate, since the medical apartments were of course already full, until the assignment personal just fricken gave up.

The shuttle facility Jim worked at as a junior tech on Tuesday’s was a little to the west, the bar he worked at Saturday and Sunday nights was southeast, away from places fleet people liked to drink. He’d had to ride the damn bus out there for three years, bluish city lights, and faint bits of jazz, and damp concrete, eyes blurring studying the padd balanced across his knees.

Further downtown was a matching pair of towers, deep blue glass with a tri-curved exterior structure, gaps for outdoor decks spaced out twice to make three sections. Starfleet loved heavy handed symbolism, or at least their architects did. The towers were a block apart with respect to city sun law and between them was a variety of places that catered to star fleet officers that were temporarily on earth, somewhere to get a nice haircut, a small holo theater, a VR café, restaurants catering to various species, and the kind of bar Jim was not used to going to – clean, with no imminent fist fights.

Jim had planned to keep his own apartment somewhere else, far, far away on principle, but, well, there was a certain allure in being able to keep a place up on the 40th floor and have it fleet-guaranteed that no one would be able to get in and bother his stuff. (And also had enough of the right kind of wiring already there that he could use to set up his own security.)

Most officers didn’t keep permanent rooms, it blew through credit fast, and why bother when you were single and off planet most of the time? Bones kept a preference logged for whichever floor had ‘the fewest noisy people on it damnit’ and a personal crate down in secure storage, twice the size of the ones they all packed in for aboard the Enterprise, mostly full of clothes and medical antiques he’d collected or Jim had bought him over the years.

Jim didn’t have anything to do with his credit really _except_ use it for the ridiculous apartment, besides the encrypted fund he’d had set up to pad Sam’s kid’s education, because sure there was just little Pete for now, but he’d seen how Sam was with Aurelan, there’d be more. And even James T. Kirk couldn’t drink away that much of his credit if he spent it all on illegal Romulan ale imports. 

(He had _ideas_ about a New Year’s party for the ship though, if the location options worked out. Damn it would be awesome.)

Jim sighed and stared out the window at the busy city in the morning’s damp haze.

Without the hum of the engines his room felt too quiet.

*

They could compensate for a lot of things now, medically, in ways that were far more than just slight improvements, just enough to get people by. Do things that were only magic even a hundred years ago.

Sensory nets for the blind were good enough to let you read the screen of a padd. There were implants for the deaf that simulated sound or not, sending impulses only when a critical noise was detected. Speaking assistance for throat injuries was easy. Most organs could be regrown from the recipients own stem cells. Prosthetic limbs could communicate with brain commands, powered by the person’s own body heat. Fingers and toes and ears and noses could be regrown easily enough. Hopelessly crushed bones could be repaired if the patient was reached in time.

But those things were all hospital treatments that healed, were minimal tech mainly powered off body heat. They just weren’t significant risk factors anymore.

But fleet starships were dangerous.

Pike had a letter on his padd he didn’t like, didn’t want to think about, but he had to.

It would be a year before Pike might be able to walk without heavy assistance again. Might. He still couldn’t balance himself to sit up without something to lean on, was still constantly on heavy pain medication for the foreseeable future due to the nerve damage, other drugs for the continuing cerebrospinal inflammation. He was exhausted all the time.

(And it had been so sobering, to have three different doctors, all independent of each other, come tell him privately that if Dr. McCoy hadn’t done the surgery when and how he had, if he hadn’t then tried injecting a new blend of antitoxins directly into Pike’s cerebrospinal fluid, something no one had really needed to do in fifty years and few surgeons even knew about, that he’d be on permanent assisted breathing rather than looking at extensive PT.

He’d known Dr. McCoy was good, had picked him for the Enterprise because he was good. No one completed med school by 23 with two doctorates and some very original research without being brilliant, brilliant enough Starfleet medical decided to ignore the very suspicious gaps in his previous employment records and the aviophobia and the attitude no one liked but Jim and take his application late, but Pike hadn’t expected all this to come of it.)

He was grounded.

(And what would he do with himself for all that time? For maybe years of being grounded? He couldn’t face the commandant position again, not after all that _loss_. Una still had two years out on the Defiant and he was selfishly grateful for that, to have this useless period of time to himself. And didn’t he owe this universe something for not taking quite as much from him as it had clearly wanted to?)

He couldn’t have the Enterprise.

Private liners would sometimes take on crew with unreliable mobility, but Starfleet couldn’t afford to. Any ship at any time could be diverted into or come across a combat situation. For better or worse, the fleet was paramilitary. It had to be. And EMP could still take out a lot of the more extensive assistance devices. But the idea of leaving the fleet like this made him sick.

So he took the damn promotion, traded deep space for a desk, refused sabbatical, even though the knowledge of how much worse he should have it was barely enough to keep the rage, all the grief, in check.

And when Jim came to him afterwards, in private, with his brand new commissioned officer grey uniform, hat neatly in hand and face still painfully young to Pike’s eyes, and asked if he was ok with this, if he felt like Jim had stolen his ship out from under him, if he was _mad_ , Pike made damn sure he’d never know, never have any reason to suspect that on some level it was true.

Pike would live through that other hell five times over before he’d put that on the kid’s shoulders too.

*

They’d all scattered for meetings, debriefings, requisition defenses, arguments, and friendly visits. Admirals Cole, Liu, and Morgan still thought his captaincy, the entire crew really, was a huge mistake, despite the lack of any embarrassing incidents their first weeks out.

Pike had been happy to see him at least. He was still stuck in a power chair to get around, but he was sitting up easy, moving his arms like normal, eyes focused. Jim had saved up every petty complaint and interesting story he hadn’t wanted out over fleet channels to tell him over coffee at that nice place south of campus.

It was late already and Jim needed either a nap, a long night’s sleep using Bones as a pillow, or several more cups of coffee. For now he rummaged through his bag still just inside his apartment door, changed into a blessedly ancient pair of blue jeans and a smooth black sweater and dashed back to the lift.

Bones was already bouncing on the balls of his feet in a corner of the lobby, a green canvas jacket tugged on over a black tee, that blue pendant Jim had always liked the look of bright against it. He still had uniform pants on though, the lunatic. “Come _on_ kiddo I want to get to the Pie House before it closes, or before anything else goes horribly wrong.”

“Ok, ok. Jeesh Bones. Let’s go get you your fix. Scotty’s going to meet us there, if he remembers. I commed Sulu if he wanted to come too, but I didn’t hear back and Chekov said he had a thing.”

“Eh, I think I heard Sulu was taking Chekov back to his family’s with him for some home cooking.”

“Aww.”

“Yeah. It’s sweet.”

They ran into Spock and Uhura right outside the doors, Spock all in black, some whorl textured fabric that was probably Vulcan and expensive, especially now, and Uhura in a deep purple dress, white jean jacket over top.

She glanced them over and smirked at Jim. “Date night? That’s sweet.”

Jim stuck out his tongue at her. “Bones doesn’t need to wine and dine me. You know I’m a sure thing.” He heard Bones clap a hand over his eyes and groan. “Date night?”

Spock, who’d been staring between them with blatant confusion said, “We were returning from partaking in supper.”

“Hey, we’re heading to a dessert bar. I commed you both, but I think you were out already. Wanna come along? Or were you heading upstairs for dessert instead?”

Jim winked and Uhura immediately slapped his upper arm, a somewhat violent gesture to which Jim responded with a cheerful smile. Spock was still unclear on the reasoning for the entire exchange.

“You’re coming along, right? They’ve got _real peaches_. Real everything actually,” Doctor McCoy stated.

“I have never had a peach,” Spock then made the mistake of saying. “Earth has an exorbitant variety of native fruits.”

Jim shook his head resignedly while a look of creeping horror and deep sympathy took over Bones’ face.

“My God, no wonder you’re such a disaster. Now y’all have got to come with.”

The place was several blocks into the city from here and was literally called The Pie House, but it served almost any baked good you could ever want, cakes, pies, beautiful cookies, flaky pastries with fillings from blackberry to matcha, all from scratch and completely non-replicated. Bones had found the place while drunk and lost their first semester. It was on the corner of an alley, foot traffic only. The only thing marking the place was a round sign of a golden pie in a pan, half eaten like a quarter moon and barely lit.

They were never actually sure how the place drew in enough used credit to stay open.

Scotty and Keenser were in a booth already when they got there, Scotty reading and Keenser leaning his chin on one scaly hand, staring out at the street through the tiny window. Without the necessities of the uniform the Roylan was in short sleeves, the chilly evening balmy to him. Scotty waved.

Bones went right up to the counter and immediately ordered four pieces of their yellow peach pie, three for here and one to go, leaning on an elbow on the white counter near the lady who worked nights here often enough to know them on sight, glancing sideways up from under his lashes in a way that made Jim feel all proud and fuzzy. Bones had really been a mess a few years back, suspicious and prickly all over.

“Cute place,” Uhura said, already looking through the massive desert case with its tiny internal stasis field.

Spock was looking around the room item by item, the green flexiplast on the booths, the yellow paint on the walls, the older lady Bones was charming with his accent, the rainbow of Terran confectionary. Jim was getting the feeling Spock hadn’t spent much time just wandering through a human city before.

Keenser had inexplicably (seriously, the guy only needed about 100 calories a day, max) ordered a blueberry macaron, some yellow shortbread, a tiny green cheesecake, and a carrot muffin.

Spock slid carefully into the booth while Uhura ordered for them both, blinked down at the plate with a solitary piece of peach pie Bones slid over in front of him.

“You try that and see if you don’t feel better about life and the universe in general.”

Spock delicately prodded the pie slice with his fork. “I don’t see how a simple baked good could affect my mental status, let alone feelings, to use your terminology.”

Jim tapped Spock’s boot tip with the side of his foot. “Spock, have a bite and tell him you like it, for all our sakes,” he said and Scotty chuckled behind a hand.

Spock managed to nod at Bones after hesitantly taking a bite, enough so that they weren’t subject to a rant about the entire history and merits of peach pie, but his expression as he ate didn’t strike Jim as overwhelming enjoyment. He could get that. Jim had always been more of a cake than a pie guy.

But as soon as Jim was able to get his hands around his first cup of coffee with vanilla syrup he didn’t care about any of it anymore. Fuck it all. Conquer the moon. He wasn’t moving from this mug.

They all piled into the green corner booth like it was something they’d all done many times before, even though some of them had only met three months ago, and they’d never actually had the chance to all sit down and eat together on the ship, different shifts, new schedules, new jobs.

But this was nice, all together without anything terrible looming, just the latest academic publications, ship’s gossip, the Academy’s latest exobot match. It felt good. Jim’d have to try and make time for them to do this when they were out in the black.  

Everyone but Scotty watched Keenser, without actually staring or falling into awkward silence, as he took a careful bite of each item and then shoved them over in front of Scotty, who ate them with an appreciative hum and no actual conscious involvement, attention entirely on the padd he had the latest round of engineering publications from Tellar Prime loaded onto.

Eventually Keenser sat back in the booth with a heavy sigh, looking as sleepily satisfied as it was possible for a being with no eye lids and a tiny appetite to look.

Jim grinned down at the table and smooshed the last bit of strawberry-raspberry buttercream around his plate. Everyone was mostly done eating, they’d actually been here awhile, but there was no rush. He couldn’t ever talk Spock into one of the triple chocolate muffins (he could just tell drunk Spock would be _hilarious_ ) but the piece of sour cherry crumble Uhura had picked for him and he’d quickly devoured after mincing his way through the peach pie, that was almost as fun to watch. (Vulcans didn’t usually do that thing humans did and lean down towards the fork to get the bite that much faster.)

Watching Uhura and Spock with their guard down a bit more than usual was fun too. He saw them together on the bridge of course, in the hallways and the mess, or sometimes in one of the rec rooms. He’d seen that extra bright smile Uhura only turned on Spock, the way Spock would pause for full minutes at a time and watch her slender hands while she worked over the comm panel, 148 subspace frequencies, 13 encrypted federation channels, 30 out of date waveforms that were still in use in remote areas, and 17 distinct languages all programmed in a matter of seconds. She even knew _Morse code_ from memory.

That kind of competence was hot as hell, had to be even worse for a Vulcan to watch, since more of their attractive impulses were mental than physical far as he’d ever been able to tell.

They were gorgeous together, warm yet sharply contrasting skin tones, similar dark eyes and shapely mouths, delicate wrists and ears, her tiny sharp jaw, his blunt straight nose. But they were both like Bones, he’d never say no, not ever, would love to see how pleasure hummed behind their eyes, memorize all their sounds, how they’d move, but keeping the friendliness and the working relationships strong was way more important.

Someone’s comm chirped and they all looked up, alert in that sudden way you could never turn off once learned. Jim reluctantly pulled his comm out of a pocket after the second chirp.

Bones swore. “Don’t you tell me this is getting cut short.”

But Jim read the message and grinned, wide and sunny, the one he’d always used to convince almost everyone at the academy that his intellect was slightly below average but they all liked him anyway. Uhura remembered it very well from the xenolinguistics club. “Oh! Nope. R’rrel and M’Murra are back for two days.”

Jim flicked his comm open. “Hey, I’m outside the Pie House, you know the place we went for cream sodas that one time? I’ll see you both outside in a minute.”

“Ditching us are you kiddo?”

“It is getting late guys, sorry, and you know, duty calls.”

McCoy grumbled something that sounded like booty call but no one called him on it.

Outside the night had cooled further; the humans shook heated limbs against the chill air. On the ship Gamma would have just begun. Down the street there was a high chirrup and they everyone but Scotty curiously turned to look.

Two Caitian women were standing arm in arm on the corner, one with russet brown fur, one tawny, grinning widely with sharp teeth. The russet one waved.

They didn’t look quite like the Caitians Uhura had seen before. Their fur was cropped down almost short except for their heads and ruffs and towards the ends of their tails. They were both wearing red halter-style dresses, obviously Starfleet back on leave, almost definitely other comm officers, though the tawny one had studs and silver rings lining the edges of her flicking ears.

Kirk was rubbing the back of his neck as they stared between them and him, shrugged his shoulders cheerfully under the kind of sensible looking sweater that seemed ridiculous in this situation.

Scotty glanced up from reading when Keenser poked him hard in the ribs and boggled. “Seriously lad? Well, have a nice evening. We’ll just, be off,” and they ambled down the sidewalk together back the way they’d came, Scotty’s stride always perfectly altered for Keenser’s shorter legs.

Kirk and McCoy were hugging, a companionable one-armed grasp around shoulders if you only glanced at them, but actually standing close enough they were pressed belly to belly like lovers. The betting had quickly followed them from the academy to the ship. McCoy finally gave Kirk a fond shove away down the sidewalk.

“Guess you really meant _not only_ , huh Kirk?” she teased after him.

Kirk laughed so it echoed along the empty street. “I cannot believe you just said that. Oh my god Uhura, that’s terrible,” and jogged away down the sidewalk, rubbing cheeks in greeting with one woman while the other wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him along out of sight.

Nyota had to bite her lip not to laugh when she looked back at Spock, blinking repeatedly in confusion with his lips slightly parted. Oh the sweet thing.

“I… had not thought it likely there was much truthful information to the rumors of his… proclivities.”

“What, that he’s promiscuous as a bunny rabbit, or…” Doctor McCoy laughed, an oddly rich rasping sound. “What you thought he was actually _picky_? Thought pretty human ladies was it, huh? I could tell you _stories_. Shouldn’t you have at least known better Uhura?”

She shrugged. It was weird to think they’d all been bitching at each other in the back of the old interspecies ethics class this time last year, and she’d only known who McCoy was because he and Jim had been attached at the hip since that damn shuttle ride, and Gaila sometimes called the surly man sugar pie behind his back. (She’d called Jim lots of other things Nyota desperately wishes she could un-hear.)

“Interest in Gaila tells me nothing. Everybody likes Gaila.”

(Nyota didn’t let herself start frowning. Gaila was going to make it. Orion skin was just complicated, due to the chlorophyll. They couldn’t put her into Regen because the sun-wasting would render any improvement moot. It’d just be slow, that’s all. She’d go visit again tomorrow, now that Gaila was awake more and more.)

“True enough. Goodnight you two. You’ll have to forgive me, only thing I’m interested in right now is the mattress I hear calling my name.”

The street went quiet after everyone had drifted away. Spock was letting himself lean against a lamppost, a breach of posture seldom seen, shoulders still straight but a slight curve to his spine. Nyota slid her arms around his waist, set her chin against his chest looking up. He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.

“There’s a new botanical art exhibit at the Preserve, a walkable maze featuring night blooming flowers from six different planets. It is some distance to traverse but if you are amenable?”

“That sounds lovely.”

She tucked her arm through the bend of his elbow and leaned close along his side. The night air was cool, almost too cold for Spock to really be comfortable, she knew, but he had a thick shirt on, the angular cut and deep black color marking it as distinctly Vulcan. She hoped it was comforting.

The garden was beautiful. They didn’t hold hands like they would on the Enterprise arboretum, too many strangers here, but Nyota kept her arm through his, let their hips brush.

They caught a late tram back to her rooms, holding hands hidden in the fall of her skirt. He rubbed the pad of one smooth finger in circles on the back of her hand while she leaned her head on his shoulder and stared out the window.

As soon as her door closed behind them Nyota dropped her jacket softly to the floor, toed off her boots, held up her hair so Spock would unfasten her dress. She kissed him after, let her dress fall.

“I’m going to take a bath.”

His lips quirked up in a quiet smile.

He sat in a chair nearby and snuck glances as she bathed with the door open. The room was plenty warm enough. Vulcans may not get the appeal of soaking in the tub, partly for the incomprehensible waste and glut of water required, partly because they simply did not enjoy being wet as much as humans, but the concept of rubbing a nicely scented oil into ones skin afterwards apparently made perfect logical sense. She tugged his shirts off while his slick palms ran up along her legs, felt the drag of his cheek against her belly, the way he always inhaled deep against the skin between her breasts.

They crawled into bed with lush, slow kisses, left hands seeking each other to tangle, falling into the eddies of thoughts and sensations skirting across their minds. In the dim city light his skin looked creamy soft against his black shorts and the dark sheets; she dragged her lips across it down to his heart. She was still kneading the slick heel of her hand in circles along his back when they dozed off within minutes of each other. All that lovely evening and no shifts tomorrow and they didn’t even end up having _sex_. She ended up using his shoulder for a pillow, arm over his waist and his fingers light around her wrist as he slept silently on his belly.

Shit they were boring.

No one could _ever know_.

In the early morning she crept out of bed, was coming back with two hot teas and scones when she spotted Kirk heading down the hallway to McCoy’s room, barefoot, hair a disaster, sweater in hand, and a red split in his lower lip. Unbelievable.

He spotted her and waved sleepily.

Nyota rolled her eyes with a grudging fondness she was getting more used to and shut her door behind her.

*

They were to escort the diplomatic and general passenger vessel the Pluto Heart, star liner class, minimal shields or weapons, all the way out to Beta Kelpie (and who the fuck named all this shit? Kelpie?! They must not be too worried about their kids drowning.), a new colony out near the neutral zone (great soil, good amount of gemstones, somehow this made the location not batshit). This could have been done by any one of the three Miranda type cruisers or the two Newton type frigates currently in Spacedock 1, Romulan activity was at a two year minimum. But no.

But this wasn’t their mission to be an efficient use of their time. This was to make a point.

This was so a large group of the federation public could get a good look at their new flagship in the hopes that all their resultant blabbing over the Nets would help lower tensions about the Romulus. This was so Jim could smile and shake hands and take pictures and stand carefully between the cameras and Spock and Bones, who were easily overwhelmed by the attention. This was using the ship and its youthful crew like some show steer, primped up and parading around.

This was because Pike had told him the better they did at this, the faster they stopped getting assigned missions that were beneath their skill sets, and Jim had done something very difficult for him and kept his trap shut about it to the other admirals, even though he knew his crew was going to feel as insulted as he did.

Cruising at warp three with what seemed like frequent stops for the liner’s engines to recuperate was boring. At least everyone had just had leave, so morale wasn’t too bad.

(Yet. Nothing took it out of a ship full of energetic overachievers like busy-work boredom.)

And Spock either didn’t get that it was an insulting waste of their time or didn’t want to get it.

Jim still wasn’t sure how to sit down and just talk to Spock. They’d moved around each other like any tactical squad’s dream on the Narada. Jim only had to glance at him to know what he was probably thinking. He knew they were covering all the ship’s day to day business in record times for the fleet.

It was the command team ideal they heard about in lectures. But whenever they were alone it felt like talking got stilted, like someone wanted to say something they didn’t have words for and Jim wasn’t actually sure which one of them it was.

But today it was probably all going to end in another epic fight.

“My whole point is this is all still busy work, bullshit none of us need to be doing! They send us out here, but command doesn’t trust us. All my department heads are highly qualified for any kind of research there is and we’re playing guard dog for a ship of minimal value to the Romulans like this is a normal assignment!” He paced through his ready room with furious energy.

Spock stood placid by the door. “It is a traditional function of Starfleet ships to provide escort upon request.”

“This is a waste of time for us and you fucking know it.

“Most of our ship practices have been within standard norms since the beginning of our assignment. I am…”

Spock fell silent abruptly. Jim ducked his chin down, stared.

“Most. You said most.”

Spock opened and shut his mouth in a way that looked vaguely robotic. “I did.”

“…are we doing things already, that are, not standard, Spock?”

“…yes.”

Obviously Spock didn’t want to discuss this. Too bad. “Ok. Like what?”

“You share more details of our mission plans and parameters with the crew as a whole.”

“Uh, the crew is coming on our missions Spock.”

“In fact, you speak over the shipwide comm system more than any other captain in the fleet.”

“So?! You’re telling me it’s better if I talk to people less? I thought that was part of my job!”

“You consistently spend the minimum of time at your own station during your shifts.”

“We haven’t been in any situations that need me on the bridge all the time! My crew know what they’re doing.”

“You spend more time working in other departments, mainly programming and engineering, than any other captain in the history of the entire federation.”

“I’m qualified and it’s my goddamned ship Spock! I shouldn’t work here? I shouldn’t know what’s going on in every department, in every cubic centimeter? That’s bullshit!”

Spock glowered.

Jim tugged at his own hair, forcibly made himself lower his voice. “Hey, am I not pulling my weight here? I mean between us, the way we split up tasks, are you getting a raw deal out of it? I didn’t want you on my ship so you could do my work for me, no matter what they’re saying behind our backs.”

“No. No, I can assure you that is not the case.”

“Then what exactly is your problem here Spock?!”

“I don’t have one!” Spock almost shouted.

They were toe to toe, staring fiercely into each other’s faces. Beta shift had to be able to hear them out on the bridge.

Slowly, Jim’s face curved into a wide smile as everything clicked back into place, the universe in order again and they were both right there on the same page. “I see.”

Spock nodded sharply, shoulders shifting back down in his personal version of a relieved slump.

“You wanna play chess later?” Jim asked.

Spock blinked. “I am amenable. However, I know you refused repeated invitations to join the academy chess organization.”

“And I know you were asked to leave after that one cadet cried after playing you. Besides, I never got along so well with any of them.”

They played their first game in the formal game lounge on E deck, a traditional game with a 2D board. Jim offered Spock white but he took black. The game was not that lengthy, comparatively, but it was intensely vicious. Spock was a formidable encyclopedia of chess technique. Jim’s own strategies tended towards the on the fly, the knowledge of his opponent and the gravity of a simple reaction to a simple pawn.

Jim won with a mere three pieces left on the board unslaughtered and something that might have been a smile from Spock as he tipped his dark king.

They both startled at the applause.

While they’d played a shift had changed and the near empty room was now full of crew, a handful of physicists, some programmers and cartographers, comms officers, a wide eyed Chekov, and Uhura and Bones leaning near the door together clapping with all the rest.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started several months ago when I scribbled out a list of things the original series and all the movies never really got a chance to go into, things like what everyone did on an average day, schedules, scientific research, boredom, and lots and lots of deep space phenomena. I ended up with a long list of things that would make cute drabbles. Then I ended up researching a lot of canon and cool space science. Then I ended up with this. This is of course, much longer than I had planned. Oops.
> 
> This will have three chapters overall, all around the same length. More tags will be added as I go. I'll probably change the summary five or six times. There's also more attention for each character coming up, if you didn't see much of them here. I can't say when I'll get the next part up for sure, but each chapter stands alone just fine for now. No cliffhangers here! 
> 
> I love getting comments about whatever you enjoyed in my story and con crit is always welcome on my fics. If you spot a typo or inconsistency don't hesitate to let me know! I'm also on tumblr over [here](http://meanderings0ul.tumblr.com).
> 
> The title is part of a quote from Gene Roddenberry. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


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